Peter Misko (ESTEEM '21)
Hello my name is Peter Misko. I was born and raised in St. Louis but have lived in a northern suburb of Chicago since my sophomore year of high school. I attended Xavier University as an undergrad, majoring in Biology while minoring in Chemistry and Deaf studies. I chose ESTEEM because it equips students with a background in STEM with business skills that are applied first hand in the capstone projects we work on during the 11-month duration of the program.
I started off my Monday by going to the gym in Duncan Student Center, which is attached to the football stadium. Due to COVID, we need to sign up for time slots ahead of time. After the gym, I ran some paperwork by campus employment for my part-time job as a recruiter for the local South Bend company, INVANTI. I’m helping them find good candidates to join their program that helps entrepreneurs (who don’t have ideas yet) formulate businesses. On my way back to my apartment from the Stadium I stopped by the Graduate Appreciation Week table on the Library Lawn and picked up a free donut and t-shirt. My first class on Monday doesn’t start till 3:55 so my day is wide open. I started off responding to new emails, as well as ironing out future interview dates for my capstone project with Amicus Therapeutics. My marketing midterm test is on Tuesday so I spent an hour or so preparing for it. I also finished up my product-market fit homework from my launch strategy class regarding how my project with Amicus fits into the market. After my business law class at 3:55, I have a networking phone call learning more about a consulting firm I am interested in. After class and the call I cooked myself dinner, and started wrapping things up for the day. I relaxed that night with my roommate who’s in the ACMS program here by watching some Monday Night Football.
Tuesday started the same as Monday at the gym, but I followed it up with a meeting with Professor Foley, who is my capstone advisor. We discussed the upcoming market sizing assignment that has a peer review Thursday at midnight. My project focuses on the commercial planning for a new drug for Pompe Disease, which is an orphan disease. After the meeting I went to my tech elective, which is a seminar that covers topics of cancer research that are conducted here on Notre Dame’s campus. I spent the afternoon beginning to work on the market analysis. I worked until my marketing class that begins at 5:30. The mid-term goes well and I ate leftovers from the night before after class. I spent the rest of the evening continuing to work on the market analysis.
I spent Wednesday morning working predominantly on the market analysis capstone deliverable that is due next Monday. This is one of the many deliverables we are asked to complete while working on our capstone project. At 3:55 I headed to business law again where we learned about the patent process and what can and cannot be patented. Immediately after we had our Launch Strategy class where we dove into the thought process and strategy of how to bring our various capstone projects to market. This class is very engaging. In the evening, I headed to our marketing professor’s house for a small group dinner, since the university recently allowed gatherings of less than 20 people in an outdoor setting.
Thursday is by far the busiest day for me this week. The day started off with the first meeting of our finance class at 8 am. I had a second round job interview that went from 9:30-1:10 so that took up the largest chunk of my day. After the interview I conducted an interview for my capstone project with a genetics professor here at ND, and then immediately followed that with a meeting with my capstone sponsor where we discussed the market analysis deliverable. I spent the rest of the afternoon working on a marketing group project as well as continuing to work on other homework assignments.
We don’t have any scheduled classes on Fridays, so we normally have meetings and the opportunity to schedule various meetings for ourselves relating to our courses/jobs/side projects. My morning started off with another job interview. Then at noon I attended an “Innovation Rally” on Zoom where the founder of Unshackled Ventures, a VC focused on helping immigrant founders obtain visas, spoke to us. Immediately after the talk I had another capstone related interview for my project. Later in the afternoon I had a meeting for my part time job with INVANTI. Besides working on various odds and ends for my other courses I took the rest of the day off and got some free food on the Library Lawn that night.
Saturday was game day against FSU. The team had the previous 2 weeks off due to COVID and their scheduled bye week, but the team still had a great game and won. I didn’t do much work Saturday -- I gave myself a day off. Sunday I took the time to finish up the work I still needed to complete for the upcoming week.
Thanks for reading about my week in ESTEEM!